


and welcome to the Penumbra

by acerbicsarcasm



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: A little penumbra meta, Gen, POV Second Person, Purple Prose, very short just because i wanted to write something fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acerbicsarcasm/pseuds/acerbicsarcasm
Summary: You appear confused, dear traveller, but there's no need to be. The Penumbra has always taken precisely the shape it needs to guide us through these foggy lands to the stories within.-----Here are a few of those shapes of the Penumbra, and how you discovered them.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

The rain is pounding with the type of ferocity that lends street-lights halos. It splashes across your boots, and the hem of your pants are soaked. They ride up a little bit against your ankles, a sopping reminder of how damn _cold_ it is these evenings.

You don’t have an umbrella in hand — of course you thought you wouldn’t need it — and so you’re walking quickly with your shoulders shrugged upwards, your hands tucked under your arms. One hand still grips your dead phone. Your eyes are trained on the asphalt.

A car zooms past, and you glance up to see if it might be a taxi, but it swings past you too fast to see. Instead you get a splash, right across your chin. You shake your head, trying to get the water out of your hair, and resolve to keep your head down.

There. Ahead of you, glowing reflected on the puddle ahead of you. It looks like the words ‘ _HOTEL_ ’ gleaming violet, and your heart lifts.

But when you look up, there’s no such thing. Instead, silhouetted vertically against the dark sky, in narrow, art-deco typography, the sign says _THE PENUMBRA._ It glows neon purple, flickering gently.

You try the door, a heavy wooden one. It swings open into a hallway that leads only to an elevator. The hallway itself is decorated with watercolour paintings along the wall; a mask, an empty canvas, a grazing horse beneath a full moon, a Grecian bust with a head on each side, a house. They seem to have nothing to do with each other, but each one is wrought in the same style of watercolours. You walk past them slowly before you get to the elevator.

It’s old fashioned, with golden grating and red velvet carpet. The hand-rail beneath tarnished mirrors that line either side of you are gold. Or they would be, if someone polished them up a bit. Above the elevator is a golden dial, the type that would indicate which floor it was on, but this one has no numbers. The hand is all the way to the left, and when you press the button, the grate opens immediately for you.

There is only one button, but with your relief to be out of the rain, that hardly phases you. You press _CONCIERGE_ and the golden grate slides closed, then a panel. The wallpaper on the panel is rubbed off in some places, old but still grand.

It’s a short ride, and somehow you’re unsure if you’re travelling up or down. Elevator jazz plays, the twinkle of piano keys accompanying you. You slide to a smooth stop. The panel slides aside first, then the creak of the grate. There’s a _ding_ somewhere above your head.

The walls are dark mahogany wood, the carpet lush and purple. Directly ahead of you, there’s a large, well-built wooden desk, pigeonholes behind it that seem to stretch back in layers upon layers. To your left and right, hallways yawn, lit by wall sconces. They flicker as if lit by real candles, illuminating room numbers like _13J, 28NN,_ and _3,960,773L._ You blink, sure you still have water in your eyes. You glance back the way you’ve come; the hand on the golden dial is now three-quarters to the right.

A man in a crisp concierge’s uniform looks up. Though his clothes look cared for, they, like the entire hotel, look worn and old. You notice a button on his sleeve has been carefully re-sewn, the only evidence of the repair the slight mis-matching of threads. He smiles when he sees you, genuine and warm, and stands to greet you.

“Ah, good evening, traveller! Welcome to the Penumbra. May I take your coat?”


	2. Chapter 2

You are certain your train is late. It’s been nearly a half hour, with no one else on the platform at this time of night except you, and the lady who was selling tickets but has long since disappeared from view. Perhaps she is hiding from the gentle drizzle of rain that has started in the confines of an office somewhere. An office with heating, you consider longingly. Idly, you set a child’s action figure upright where someone has left it underneath the bench. It’s a little dusty and wet now, but you can still tell it was a warrior woman. You place her on her feet again.

The umbrella you brought does nothing to protect you from the occasional gusts of wind that spit rain in your face, or on the front of your shirt. You begin to wish you had brought gloves , but there had been way to know how long you would be waiting. A cat yowls and rushes across the tracks, and you jump. It makes you look around, and that’s when you see it.

Lights grow in the distance, one, then two as they grow nearer and separate. You stand, leaning out over the edge of the platform to see better. It’s a large train, you can tell that much. You glance down at the rain-speckled program the lady selling tickets gave you; the train you are waiting for is designated as a three-carriage train, and this one appears to be much larger.

But yours was due more than thirty-five minutes ago, the last service of the night. This must be it. You know this because you have spent the last thirty-five minutes flipping through the program, including the puzzle that required you to solve an optical illusion of finding a snail and a man in one picture. It took you mere minutes. After that, you began looking at trains that would arrive the next morning in the small hours, just in case.

A sound reaches you even through the din of the intensifying rain. Rhythmic. The screech of wheels being pulled to a stop is there, of course, easy enough to pick out. But there is also a regular _chuffing_ , a sound you haven’t heard since you were younger and watching movies set half a century ago.

The first carriage passes you, and you realise it is an engine. The sloping front, a tall chimney that lets wisps of smoke drift away into the rainy evening, slides past you. The second carriage is the one that stops in front of you. Rows of windows, too high for you to see in, glow merrily in the night. You step forward, still sheltering under your umbrella and ready to ask what number this train is.

The ovular door opens with a heavy _thunk_ and a man leans out, offering you a hand. His neatly pressed conductor’s uniform has a double-breasted row of brass buttons that shine in the rain. He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s getting wet. On his collar is tacked a small purple pin with gold lettering: _The Penumbra Express._ This seems entirely too fancy for the ticket you bought earlier.

Behind him, curling around his polished shoes, is a cat. The same cat you saw earlier. You stare for a moment, trying to figure out how it got there before you did. It sees you and immediately runs off.

You accept his hand and he gets you up the two steps and into the carriage. It’s warm, and calm music plays; a man’s voice singing. The entire carriage is carpeted in dark purple, individual compartments leading away from you, and it smells like hot chocolate.

“Ah, good evening traveller! And welcome to the Penumbra. Take your seat please, take your seat.”


	3. Chapter 3

It started to thunder as you were walking. You have a bag slung over one shoulder, and shoes that were not designed for muddy country roads, so you walk fast. There is mud and muck all the way up to your shins now, and you try and remember why you decided taking the route through the fields home was a good idea.

The wheat is swaying in the wind that accompanied the rain, and you keep blinking furiously, trying not to let it get in your eyes. You’ve already tripped once, and you don’t want to —

You trip. But unlike last time, when you throw your hands out to protect yourself, they don’t meet the ground. Instead, one hand wraps around a post, and it takes you a moment to realise it isn’t an electrical post. You haven’t seen one of those out here. No, it’s a post for a mailbox. You straighten up and use your bag as a shield so you can read: _The Penumbra_. You had expected a surname perhaps, something like _The Smith Family_ or _No Junk Mail_ or _Beware of Dog_. This fits none of these categories. You peer down a well-manicured lane, winding through the fields.

It’s hard to see in the rain, but this doesn’t appear to be a farm. While the wheat either side is neatly sown in rows and evenly spaced, this lane is lined on either side by trees and bushes. You dart under one, just for some relief from the rain.

You look up and realise it is an apple tree, but a variety you haven’t seen before. It’s fruiting, and you reach up. With a shower of droplets, a fruit falls into your hand. The one next to it might be avocados. Beside that, citrus?

Following the tree line, you notice the bushes. Berries, some you can’t even name, grow entwined with taller corn stalks. There are sunflowers, facing each other. A beehive, quiet and inactive. It’s as if you’ve stumbled into a wild garden.

Before you know it, you’re beside the porch. The house is small, single-story and built low to the ground. On the porch is a hanging bench, the type that one might swing on. Inside, there’s the hum of music.

You make a dash for the awning, running from the tree cover to the edge of a small open garage. It holds a green car and you lean against it for a moment, then rush from the garage to the porch. You get wet in the process, but you try and shake it off, despite how cold you are. You realise you still have an apple in one hand.

The thunder rumbles again above your head, and the door opens. The music is louder now, and a man reaches out with a smile, inviting you in. The smell of pie wafts through the open door, and you see a living room upholstered in pale lilac, a person with curly short black hair swept to one side sitting on an armchair. They smile at you and gesture towards an empty seat by the fireplace. You notice a few other people too, or at least their voices, the low hum of conversation.

The door closes behind you as you take your seat on the couch, a mug of tea is thrust into your hands, and the man who opened the door settles down.

“Ah, good evening traveller, and welcome to the Penumbra. Tonight’s tale is …”


End file.
